How many times have you heard the following said over the last two days, in pubs, offices and factories all around this great city?

“Yeah, but it doesn’t count as much because City have bought the title.”

Putting aside the obvious response, which is that the title is a long way from being over, it is breathtaking nonsense.

If you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, you get the feeling that this particular pot, blackening the name of the kettle, is stuffed with sour grapes.

Of course City, if they close out this season, have bought the Premier League. But then again, which Premier League winner hasn’t?

The problem that United fans have got is that, under the austerity of the Glazers, they HAVEN’T bought the title, as they have been doing for the past 20 years.

In the history of English football, United have broken the transfer record five times. City have done it three times – and one of those was on super-flop Steve Daley 32 years ago.

Under Sir Alex Ferguson, the Reds have set new highs in the transfer market to bring in Andy Cole (£7million), Juan Veron (£28.1million) and Rio Ferdinand (£29.1million).

Since the Abu Dhabi takeover, City have done it twice, on Robinho (£32.5m) and Sergio Aguero (£38m).

And if that is not enough, United’s team on Monday contained the most expensive goalkeeper in English history, as well as the most expensive defender and the most expensive teenager, not forgetting the fact they had a £30million striker sitting unused on the bench.

When Fergie won his first league title in 1993, it came on the back of a £6.75million spending spree on Gary Pallister, Danny Wallace, Neil Webb, Paul Ince and Mike Phelan. That sounds like peanuts today, but in 1989 it represented a huge outlay.

It paid dividends too, as the Reds won the league two years running, and they have continued to spend more than the vast majority until the relative austerity of the Glazers.

The only teams who have hitherto challenged United’s hegemony have been Blackburn, funded by Jack Walker’s fortune, Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea and Arsenal under Arsene Wenger.

Perhaps only Arsenal could claim to have won the title on anything resembling a budget, but they also spent big ahead of their title successes, splashing out over £20million on talent such as Marc Overmars, Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit in 1996.

Wenger has a reputation as a manager who doesn’t spend, but he has flashed the cash when necessary – remember Thierry Henry (£10.5m), Sylvain Wiltord (£13m), Jose Reyes (£13m) and a chap called Samir Nasri (£15.8m)?

The bottom line is that the top flight of English football ceased to be a pure football competition many years ago. If you want to win the title, you need a top manager and top players, all of which cost.

City didn’t ruin football, as some sniffy fools have suggested. They have just joined the game, and started to play by rules not of their own making.

Once the notion that City are doing something wholly new and horrendous is nailed, there is an even more scurrilous nonsense dragged up.

“Well, yeah, everyone spends money, but United’s money is their own – they earned it, and weren’t just given it by some Arab sheikh.”

Of course, this is specious nonsense, the kind of tripe spouted by the fans of rich clubs who don’t want upstart oiks elbowing their way to a place at the trough.

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City boss Roberto Mancini happy for striker Carlos Tevez to remain at Etihad

This is where UEFA’s financial fair play rules come in. You would like to think they are a genuine attempt to rein in the financial madness which has enveloped football, and stop clubs spending beyond their means in a vain grasp for glory.

But when a club like City, financially secure through owners who are pouring millions into football and their community, is under scrutiny, you have to doubt UEFA’s true intent.

Blame

That makes it look like a charter for the establishment, trying to ensure that global brands like United, Real Madrid and Barcelona will NEVER be challenged.

United fans, and UEFA, should be looking at the priorities of the Old Trafford owners, rather than the benevolence of Sheikh Mansour, if they want to see where the blame will lie if the balance of power shifts over the course of the next 10 days.

There are plenty of grounded Reds fans who know this. One of their number said, three years ago, that City’s owners were supplying the Blues with ‘rocket fuel’, while United’s rulers were forcing Sir Alex Ferguson to drag a tractor behind him.

United rake in more money than anyone else, but sizeable amounts of their income comes from the pockets of their own fans – who have suffered huge price increases over the past five years – from concentrating their efforts to become a global brand, and from trading on the club’s name.

City have tried to maintain their local identity and support as well as expanding their horizons, and are active and purposeful in engaging with their community. The Glazers, meanwhile, seem most preoccupied with trying to re-balance their balance sheet.

That should be a far more important argument than petty nitpicking about how the money was made – it should be a case of ‘Where is the cash going?’ rather than ‘Where did you get it from?’

City didn’t beat United on Monday because their owners have bigger bank balance.

They won because they deserved to win it.

Roberto Mancini out-thought Sir Alex Ferguson, and his players showed a desire and determination, as well as a level of football, which proved beyond the Reds on the night.

No-one should forget it was the greed of United, who were instrumental, along with Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton and Tottenham in forming the Premier League, which led directly to where we are today.

To win the Premier League, you need to be both financially stacked and football savvy, and the two are inter-dependent.

So for any fans – Red or otherwise – to start bleating about it now is pathetic.

I will make this a sticky thread if it disappears off the page as it will be a useful tool to quote in the coming weeks of arguments that we are all going to be embroiled in with those uneducated red twats

Hold on, utd also broke the the transfer record with keane which was forgotten and we didnt break the transfer record with Aguero as torres for 50m is the transfer record for buying in england, we broke our own record but not the english record.

derby day the scores were level,then the goat was fed by neville,silly boy should know for sure,feed the goat and he will score!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

leomcfc wrote:Well done everyone who boycotted the paper. A mate of mine works there and was telling me they want blues back onside. I didn't believe him but appears he is right judging by this article .

Is that right ? I was wondering about this because Peter Spencer was positively arse kissing City on Keys & Gray the other day & usually he comments about us through gritted teeth & still throws in snide comments, or helps spread disruptive tabloid rumours he aready knows not to be true.

I maintain that if we keep talking about these fucking, rag sucking twats in the media & keep highlighting their obvious bias , they will find it increasingly difficult to stab us in the back; when everyone can see what they are doing.

Andy Gray mentioned today that he wouldn't have given Howard Webb the City game, because of the shit it could cause if he stitches us up (accidentally of course!). It's working.

The pissartist formerly known as Ted

VIVA EL CITY !!!

Some take the bible for what it's worth.. when they say that the rags shall inherit the Earth...Well I heard that the Sheikh... bought Carlos Tevez this week...& you fuckers aint gettin' nothin..

Maybe it was the song. There is something rather wonderful about the coda to Hey Jude, something very affecting. They were at a peak then, The Beatles.

Hey Jude was recorded during sessions for their epic White Album, when they had their own record label, complete artistic freedom and were on top of the world. If the band wanted the first single on Apple to be seven minutes long, if Paul McCartney wanted a sing-a-long fade-out lasting four minutes, that's how it was.

'Paul walked over to the grand piano and said, "Hey, lads, have a listen",' recalled Ron Griffith of the group Badfinger, the first to sign to Apple. 'He then played a full concert rendition of Hey Jude.'Sing when you're winning: Liam Gallagher in celebratory mood at the Etihad on Monday night

McCartney's vision for the song was unflinching. He told George Harrison to stop playing a guitar response to every line. 'The movement you need is on your shoulder,' sang McCartney. He didn't know what it meant, either. 'I'll fix that later,' he told the band. John Lennon said he should keep it in. 'It's the best line in the song,' he insisted.

When it came to the final chorus, the orchestra - 10 violins, three violas, three cellos, two flutes, one contra bassoon, one bassoon, two clarinets, one contra bass clarinet, four trumpets, four trombones, two horns, percussion, and two string basses - were paid double time to stay behind and clap and sing along.

'Astonishingly transcendental,' said former Yale professor and musicologist Alan Pollack, on the coda of Hey Jude. 'What could have been boring is instead hypnotic.' Lennon was more concise. He called it McCartney's masterpiece.

And even now, when 45,000 Sky Blues stay behind on the final whistle to celebrate a milestone victory over Manchester United, by singing the na-na-na chorus, and inserting City at its end, the emotion on display, even for neutrals, is greatly moving.

On Monday it felt like a spell, and, sure enough, like saying Candyman three times into a mirror, it brought forth Beatles disciple Liam Gallagher, who gave an impromptu press conference, underlining the fact that City always shaded Manchester's music wars, too.

The Fall, New Order, Oasis and Doves versus Mick Hucknall - we should really leave it there - Terry Hall of The Specials and The Stone Roses on United's side (although you will notice the colour scheme in the iconic Pollockesque portraits of the Roses is sky blue and white, due to photographer Kevin Cummins being an absolute City nutter and singer Ian Brown not spotting his mischief).

Anyway, we seem to have digressed somewhat, but the point is this. Imbued in City's moment of glory was inescapable sadness, too: because this club is the last. For as long as UEFA remain in charge of the purse strings of English football, we will never tread this path again. The door is shut now.

This is the last group of fans who can be lifted from mediocrity by the fairytale: the one where a very rich man flies in bearing gifts and transports a club to the heavens. And surveying the sheer pleasure that it brought one half of Manchester on Monday, we have to ask: how did football allow this to happen?

How did the sport permit a single man's idea of what is right and preferable to erase one of the most potent forces for good in the game? Money from outside, coming in, to make dreams come true. What on earth was wrong with that?

Forget Portsmouth, forget Leeds United, forget the financial disaster stories that are trotted out to make fans think like accountants and turn their fun, their weekend release, into an extension of mundane, recession-blighted existence.Falling short: Arsenal would not have challenged Manchester United this year, even with Samir Nasri (centre)

This is not about spending money a club does not have, or ruinous owner loans that are given and then just as unthinkingly recalled. The focus here, specifically, is on the Abu Dhabi project and others like it, when a very rich man gives - without expectation of return - money to a football club to have a right old go.

Take City away and what would this season have brought? A 13th Premier League title for Manchester United. Unlucky for some; mainly those who seek variety. Here comes another one, just like the other one.

And don't pretend that Arsenal would have had more of a tilt at it, had City's wealth not taken their best players: Arsenal could call on Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri, plus a fit Jack Wilshere, in previous campaigns and did not get close.

Without owner investment and ambition, this is a one-team league. That slamming noise is the door shutting on the rest of football with City squeaking sideways through the diminishing gap just in time.

Every other club will have to do it the hard way now, even Liverpool, so the celebrations in Manchester marked the end of an era, too. It was an era dominated by the financial powerhouse that is Manchester United, but with the excitement of fresh faces and interlopers to at least keep them honest.

The biggest will have it easier from here, without having to meet the challenge of an equivalent to Roman Abramovich or Sheik Mansour's billions. Some talk of financial doping but it was never that. If you want to spend your money on your business, why not? If money that was beyond football arrives and stays, the industry thrives.

Fortunately, in the English game, City and Chelsea made it in before the deadline passed, so our league should have four, maybe five clubs, capable of contesting the title. They are not so lucky in Spain, for instance, where it will take a miracle for the duopoly of Barcelona and Real Madrid to be broken.

There are competitions throughout Europe that will become wholly one-dimensional after this. It is why we need City to finish this job now, to win at Newcastle United on Sunday, then against Queens Park Rangers and form a powerful rivalry across town.

We cannot rely on the old ways, football's natural rhythms, the ebbs and flows caused by successful investment or unfortunate mismanagement.

UEFA will protect the worst from themselves and the best from the others, so City are the last of it. The era of austerity is upon us and there won't be too many singsongs from here.

Ted Hughes wrote:Is that right ? I was wondering about this because Peter Spencer was positively arse kissing City on Keys & Gray the other day & usually he comments about us through gritted teeth & still throws in snide comments, or helps spread disruptive tabloid rumours he aready knows not to be true.

I maintain that if we keep talking about these fucking, rag sucking twats in the media & keep highlighting their obvious bias , they will find it increasingly difficult to stab us in the back; when everyone can see what they are doing.

Andy Gray mentioned today that he wouldn't have given Howard Webb the City game, because of the shit it could cause if he stitches us up (accidentally of course!). It's working.

Yeah mate. That's what I was told. The lad who told me is a decent lad . He's actually a red as well. I'd watch that Spencer carefully. As you say he never has much good to say about city. It's definitely working . Just shows , even these days , if enough people stick at it , things can change. All anyone asks for is a FAIR assessment . Not much to ask

Rather bizarre, I spent my lunch time today doing a spreadsheet that reiterates that initial article. I think a couple of years back someone on here addressed the whole "buying success/ruining footie" bollox? Well, as I am surrounded by chelski, rags and other glory hunters ALL giving me Shit about it I thought I would just give them each a copy of the spreadsheet and tell them to read it.

So if I can work out how to upload said spreadsheet I will do so tomorrow, as I am typing on my HTC at the mo.

Some very interesting stats about who has spent what since 92/93 to date, basically showing all we have done is level the playing field.

Any ideas how to upload an Excel sheet to here would be welcomed if you are interested?

CTID Hants wrote:Rather bizarre, I spent my lunch time today doing a spreadsheet that reiterates that initial article. I think a couple of years back someone on here addressed the whole "buying success/ruining footie" bollox? Well, as I am surrounded by chelski, rags and other glory hunters ALL giving me Shit about it I thought I would just give them each a copy of the spreadsheet and tell them to read it.

So if I can work out how to upload said spreadsheet I will do so tomorrow, as I am typing on my HTC at the mo.

Some very interesting stats about who has spent what since 92/93 to date, basically showing all we have done is level the playing field.

Any ideas how to upload an Excel sheet to here would be welcomed if you are interested?

CTID Hants wrote:Rather bizarre, I spent my lunch time today doing a spreadsheet that reiterates that initial article. I think a couple of years back someone on here addressed the whole "buying success/ruining footie" bollox? Well, as I am surrounded by chelski, rags and other glory hunters ALL giving me Shit about it I thought I would just give them each a copy of the spreadsheet and tell them to read it.

So if I can work out how to upload said spreadsheet I will do so tomorrow, as I am typing on my HTC at the mo.

Some very interesting stats about who has spent what since 92/93 to date, basically showing all we have done is level the playing field.

Any ideas how to upload an Excel sheet to here would be welcomed if you are interested?

Excellent article Mr Blue. Strange that the title doesn't match the article which is very positive for us.

That's what I thought at first, but when you think of it, it's just lamenting the fact that UAFA are taking away the dreams of ordinary football fans, namely that their team will ever be able to compete with the best, due to their elitist charter. A bit of a difficult concept to encapsulate to the words of "Hey Jude", but I see what he means.

We shall not flag or fail.We shall go on to the end.We shall never surrender!

My dad once told me something about sports that rings true here in the Premier League. "Pro sports is about billionaires vs millionaires." I won't bore you by going into details. But you catch my drift.

Excellent article Mr Blue. Strange that the title doesn't match the article which is very positive for us.

That's what I thought at first, but when you think of it, it's just lamenting the fact that UAFA are taking away the dreams of ordinary football fans, namely that their team will ever be able to compete with the best, due to their elitist charter. A bit of a difficult concept to encapsulate to the words of "Hey Jude", but I see what he means.

Yep, he means taking City's glad song and making it bitter for football as a whole, not for City.